A Bold Look At Cta Owl Service

September 26, 1996

No city the size of Chicago can prosper without a reliable system of public transportation to get people to and from work and places of business. For many of those people, it is the only affordable option, and even if they could afford to drive themselves, the city would quickly strangle on the added traffic.

So any notion of eliminating the Chicago Transit Authority, or drastically downsizing it to a few select routes, is unthinkable. Everything else, however, must be on the table in considering how to operate the CTA leaner and smarter--as President David Mosena promised when he took over the agency this summer.

Mosena has no other choice. Next year's projected deficit of $50 million already has grown to $57 million. And it could get even worse if ridership continues to erode, federal and state subsidies are cut even more and the CTA is forced into generous contract concessions with its unions.

Thus it is encouraging that Mosena is willing to consider eliminating so-called owl service on the rail system--those trains that operate between midnight and 5 a.m. It has been a notorious money-loser, costing the CTA about $5 million a year to provide rides for 8,500 passengers a night. The bus owl service isn't much better, costing $15 million for 31,000 passengers.

Yet owl service has been protected as kind of a sacred luxury, one offered by few transit operations in the country. Previous proposals to eliminate it have been met with howls of protest from riders, politicians and neighorhood groups, as former President Robert Belcaster learned when he suggested trimming it from the reopening Green Line in May.

The concern is understandable; for that handful of riders, the service is a vital link in the dark. Mosena acknowledged as much in saying that the CTA would offer alternatives if the service is cut, such as diverting riders to buses or providing some kind of subscription service with smaller vehicles.

Exactly what will happen won't be clear until the CTA receives a consulting report on a variety of streamlining, budget-cutting options--taking a new look at the old way of doing things.

The essential point for now is that no single aspect of the system should be untouchable, and that will require considerable forbearance from the CTA's riders, unions and critics. It is far more sensible to protect the core of the system than to drive it so deeply into debt that everyone ultimately loses.